Jungle

In this essay, the author

• Explains that the jungle by upton sinclair was the catalyst to a movement in which the american public demanded the right to safe food causing the government to respond to this responsibility.
• Explains that the progressive era was a period of social and political reform in the united states that flourished from the 1890s until the 1920s.
• Analyzes how the era accommodated a large diversity of reformers, but many issues were universally protested.

• Explains that the jungle by upton sinclair was the catalyst to a movement in which the american public demanded the right to safe food causing the government to respond to this responsibility.
• Explains that the progressive era was a period of social and political reform in the united states that flourished from the 1890s until the 1920s.
• Analyzes how the era accommodated a large diversity of reformers, but many issues were universally protested.
• Analyzes how upton sinclair became an accidental muckraker after he penned the novel entitled "the jungle" which shocked america so profoundly that it caused one of the largest upheavals in the progressive era.
• Explains that by 1900 the livestock industry had become centralized and organized as stockyards and slaughterhouses came under the control of an oligopoly of the "big four" meat packers headed by philip armour, gustavus swift, nelson morris, and edward cudahy.
• Explains that chicago's packingtown took mass production to its rational extreme. the packing industry was labor-intensive and its factories did not generally integrate advances in technology.
• Explains that the work force of packingtown was comprised of unskilled, generally eastern european immigrants. the unemployed would stand at the gates of each plant every morning at dawn and the strongest-looking ones were picked and ushered into the plant.
• Explains that the meat-packer's union in chicago went on strike in 1904, demanding better wages and working conditions. the big four companies broke the strike and the union by bringing in strikebreakers.
• Narrates how sinclair read the socialist weekly, appeal to reason, which had a circulation of about 500,000 copies. he published an article supporting the workers, and 35,000 copies were distributed by striking workers.
• Narrates how fred g. warren, the editor of appeal to reason, liked the new writer who wrote with conviction, and he proposed to him an idea of writing a book on industrial slavery now.
• Describes how sinclair lived for seven weeks with the packinghouse workers, the sights and smells which he was subjected to left him "white-faced and thin, partly from undernourishment, part from horror."
• Describes how they went about the district, talking with lawyers, doctors, dentists, nurses, policemen, politicians, real estate agents, and got their meals at the university settlement.
• Analyzes how the jungle is one of the most brutal american novels. it's central figure is jurgis rudkus, a lithuanian peasant, with the story revolving around him and his family members.
• Analyzes how upton sinclair, in telling this story, had hoped to convert the public to socialism in what he sought to be the "uncle tom's cabin" of wage slavery!
• Analyzes how durham's pure leaf lard dominated the media frenzy surrounding its publication.
• Narrates how a physician discovered that the carcasses of steers which had been condemned as tubercular by the government inspectors were left on an open platform and carted away to be sold in the city.
• Explains that president theodore roosevelt was wary of the concentrated economic power that the trusts and corporations represented and felt the beef trust was capable of machiavellian behavior.
• Explains that roosevelt asked a pair of trusted advisors, charles p. neill and james b. reynolds, to assess the accuracy of sinclair's claims.
• Explains how the controversy created by the jungle was used by roosevelt to seek passage of two important pieces of legislation: the pure food and drugs act and the meat inspection act.
• Explains that the jungle led to food safety legislation which created both rights, as well as responsibilities. consumers gained the right to safe, unadulterated food while the government developed the responsibility to safeguard its citizens from unsafe and irresponsible food practices.